Shadowrun Chronicles is a top down 3-D, RPG-LITE, turn based tactical game with short, combat-oriented missions.
As something of a hybrid Tactical-RPG title, I would say its leaning markedly towards the tactical end of the spectrum. If you’re coming in expecting a full-blown RPG with a dynamic interactive story, you’ll likely be disappointed, as the efforts of the developers is more oriented towards generating a dynamic tactical game with high replay value on their content.
Everything is skill tree oriented, and its like a much larger X-Com mechanism with a linear progression down each tree and many of the progressions offering “this or that” choices. Characters can have two weapon trees active, plus two trees filled with passive abilities, which in many cases are kinda like what attributes would do in a traditional RPG system.
Visual customization of your character is all about a wide and ever growing wardrobe of exotic attires and sultry rags. Its still a work in progress, but it’s extensive now and will continue to get expanded upon post launch.
Combat is really the strength of the game. As noted, the core philosophy is quick play, and this has come together very nicely with game mechanics that generate decisive results off of single actions. Good shots with a clear line of sight or done with melee weapons have a VERY high chance to hit. Likewise, getting hit does a LOT of damage in relation to most characters ability to take damage. Conversely, targets that are buttoned up behind cover have a much lower chance to hit, so you’re really encouraged to use sound tactics and maneuver.
There’s also interesting dynamics with a rock-paper-scissors aspect based on physical-tech-magic damage and armor, some targets being extremely vulnerable to one, but immune or resistant to another. There’s also a marking system where deckers and magic users can “mark” a target that opens up the abilities for other team members attacks.
The melee based enemies are aggressive and generally just try and bum-rush you, while the missile enemies play it much more conservatively and use cover. While there are the occasional bad moves, they generally put together a coherent strategy with the more purely missile oriented forces.
You can play either way. There’s 4 player Co-Op, but you can also easily play single-player by running the whole team yourself. Co-Op is REALLY fast as everyone is allowed to move right when the player turn starts – when one person initiates a move, everyone freezes while that’s finished, but there’s no waiting on someone else unless they’re the last person to move that turn. Get with a team that knows what they’re doing and its maybe 30 second turns – very fast pace for turn based!
There’s also global chat and I’d say its generally quite friendly, as we might expect in a game that’s currently Co-Op oriented.
